Shelter Number 9
by Himonky
Summary: Shinji dies in a tragic accident, and then the other pilots begin to disappear as quickly as the Angels come. As NERV begins to run out of options, they turn to...Kensuke. 1st person perspective. Completed.
1. Shelter Number 9

If they'd asked me a few years ago, I'd have jumped at the chance. Now . . . now I'm wondering how they can even bear to ask anyone. The agent assigned to ask me had likely long since lost his conscious.

I couldn't blame him. Not when the alternative was more self hate then even Shinji had ever been able to do.

. . . Shinji . . .

"Will you do it?"

As I push my glasses up, my thoughts reel from the question.

It had been such a nice day before now. Winter break was just rapping up and soon I'd have been able to go back to school and see my friends. Or what was left of them.

It's sort of funny how it didn't snow anymore. The cold temperatures might have broken my resolve to do this. It might have reminded me of what happened the last time it snowed. The day that my life changed.

But as bad as life had been since that day, I still couldn't say no. Not to NERV, which had struggled steadily on. Not to NERV, who in my youth I'd so longed to join. Not to NERV, who were the only ones who knew the fate of Shinji Ikari, one of my best friends.

It was scary. Everything was different nowadays. Once I'd have done anything to join NERV. But after the accident three years ago . . . now I'm just scared.

"Mr. Aida. Will you do it?"

Oh. That's right. They'd be wanting an answer sometime soon.

I sigh and decide I might as well stop delaying the inevitable. I can hear myself say yes without fully knowing why.

Maybe it's the remnants of my childhood self jumping at the chance to pilot an Eva. Maybe it's my mind wanting to know what goes on down in the geofront. Maybe it's me wanting to know what happened to the other pilots, my meager assortment of friends. Maybe . . . maybe it doesn't matter anymore. Not after that day.

"Come along with us then."

What, already? I'd expected at least some sort of a reprieve.

"Yes. They'll want to start your testing right away."

I sigh and begin to walk out, ushering the agents as I go. Once outside, I pause and turn to lock the door.

"No need to worry. As of now Section-2 will be keeping an eye on your house."

Turning to look at the agent, I give him a dubious look. I'd never been impressed by Section-2's competence. But now isn't the time to discuss this with them.

Pocketing my set of keys, I begin following the MIB's into the depths of NERV. Into the depths of answers . . . and into the depths of insanity.

* * *

A nearly empty locker room greets me as I enter. Back in 2015, before the incident, I'd have expected this locker room to be filled by now. I'd have thought that the Marduk Institute would have had more success in three years. 

The reversal in birth trends and the staggering number of deaths might have something to do with it. There aren't many kids born these days, not after Second Impact. Some say its parents not wanting to bring their kids into a world as cold as this one. I can see where they come from. I don't think I'll have kids.

A lot of potential pilots probably say no these days too. After the incident in 2016 not as many people would jump into an Eva. I find this option likely as well, as I know it almost happened to me. Rooting through the luggage of my mind, I still can't quite find out why I agreed to pilot.

But of all the options to enter my head, the most fleeting, and the most horrifying, is that all the other pilots have ended up like Shinji. I fear that the song and the insanity have claimed all of them.

I sit down on one of the benches and look at my plug suit. Blue and white, just like Shinji's used to be. I allow a small smile to creep across my face as I remember back to the time me and Touji had been inside of Unit 01 with Shinji, back when he was fighting the second angel.

The smile disappears as I realize this was probably one of Shinji's spares. Maybe even the same one he wore when Unit 01 ravaged shelter #9.

* * *

My eyes were wide open when Unit 01 brought its fist down on Shelter #9. I saw it all first hand, not thirty feet away from the rampaging behemoth. Standing right outside the front door, I saw the blood that coated the monstrosity. Angel, Eva, and human. I saw the light in its eye as it brought the crushing blow down. 

A light that spoke of pleasure. A pleasure alike to nothing I had ever seen before.

Its former words and actions spoke for themselves, but in a way that I still cannot quite wrap my head around. Had that been Shinji talking, or the Eva itself? What had it meant? Was I dreaming?

I know now that I hadn't been dreaming, just having a horrible nightmare in the shape of reality.

The smell hit me while I was standing there. It was noxious, far worse than my imagination had ever allowed for. I'd fancied myself ready to be a soldier, ready to deal with death and blood and violence.

Now I found out just how excruciatingly wrong I was.

As I turned my head, from following the disappearing from of Unit 01 to the carnage it had left in its wake, my mouth fell open. I realized now that the smell was one of destroyed bodies, their entrails thrown all about. Something that looked astonishingly like a kidney lay at my feet. I willed my eyes away from it.

But eventually, they just stopped listening to my pleas. My eyes glanced down.

It wasn't a kidney. It was the remains of . . . a lot of things. And for some reason, it was decomposing at an accelerated rate. As I watched, a horde of flies sprang from the blob of former humanity.

Some dim, instinctive part of me decided to close my mouth. It was almost too late, my mouth closing just barely before the flies would've entered it.

At this point I entered shock, turning away from all the blood and ruined remains of human life. I turned and began to walk away from the battlefield turned graveyard.

Was their ever any difference? I can still only wonder.

I could only shiver and cease seeing or generally feeling. My body began to wander, my mind having been forced from its throne of control.

* * *

That was the day my innocence was drowned. 

It was easy to see why. Total casualties had been in the thousands. More then any other attack, enough that NERV couldn't cover them up. Commander Ikari didn't even try.

Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night, my sheets and body coated in sweat, having just finished another nightmare concerning the decomposing flesh. Sometimes I wonder how that could have really happened. A part of me knows it can't happen. That's the scientist.

'But it did happen. I saw it.'

That's the insane part of me. Other people might call it the realist, but to me it's insane.

'It can't have happened. Flesh doesn't dissolve that fast. The blob must have been something besides human flesh. Something left to decompose for days before the battle. It was just chance that I saw it. Just chance that it exploded with flies as I watched it.'

Rationalization often seems able to tackle anything.

'Delude yourself all you like,' says the insane piece of me, 'I still saw it.'

My thoughts are interrupted by a tired voice, belonging to one of the few people I know too have remained at NERV for a long time.

"Hurry up in there."

Ritsuko Akagi, head of Project E, has not been treated well by time.

With a start, I realize that I've been in the locker room for nearly half-an hour, Ritsuko's tired voice coming in from the loud speaker.

I hustle out of the locker room without wondering how I managed to get my plug suite on without paying any attention, without even realizing it.

* * *

It's cold inside the beast. This isn't surprising to me. For some reason I've always known it would have a cold heart. A cold heart like it must have had in order to kill so many people. 

Unit 01 has not changed with time.

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi has.

Her hair is uncombed and a sickly combination of brunette and blonde, a result of not having enough time to continue dying it properly. She looks like she hasn't showered in days, maybe longer. It's truly disgusting. Her voice is now tired and heavy, betraying she has aged before her true time.

But she's the only person here I know, the only person here paying any attention to me.

"Close off your other thoughts Kensuke. Open yourself to the Eva. Let the Eva's mind merge with yours."

Yeah, right. Let this beast into my mind. And, while I'm at it, why not let it eat me as well?

But still, some part of me heeds what she says. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind.

But, as I remember Shinji once saying, the deepest memories will enter your mind when it's the blankest. When you're lying in bed. When you're in the bathtub. When you're synching with a monster that has countless oceans of blood on its hands.

I open my eyes. "How was he able to speak?"

It's one of the more confusing parts of the whole thing. At least, it is to me. Shinji managed to speak so that I could hear him clearly . . . oh, so clearly . . . from inside of the Evangelion. That's theoretically impossible.

"How was who able to speak?"

"You know who I'm talking about."

She really does, I'm sure of it. Who else would I ask that about?

Nevertheless, she looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Shinji."

There, I said it. The forbidden name of the boy who-

"His vocal cords," she says. I can feel a bit of sarcasm in her tone. I can see a pinch of amusement playing across her face. But why would those be there?

"Evas have vocal cords?" I'm surprised by this, to say the least. Especially since the voice sounded exactly like Shinji's. And I could've sworn Unit 01 roared as Shinji raved.

Ritsuko blinked, apparently surprised by my latest question.

She must be losing her touch with time.

"How was Shinji able to talk through his Eva during the battle three years ago?"

Now she understands me.

"We don't know."

Very helpful. But I suppose I should have expected it.

"That's right. I'd forgotten you were there when it all happened."

I nod calmly, my image transmitted from the entry plug to the command room. Speaking of when I saw Unit 01 go berserk is not one of my favorite topics. Then again, it probably isn't one of Dr. Akagi's either.

"Close your eyes and try to concentrate harder. Your scores are absolutely horrible."

I sigh, expelling the last few bubbles from my lungs. I do as she says, closing my eyes and trying to concentrate.

But once more, I find concentration only brings forth the memories of a long finished, or so I hope, battle.

* * *

The corpse of the eighteenth angel wasn't even cold yet. The huge spider, something my mind continued to claim should've collapsed under its own weight, lay vanquished. And then Unit 01 had frozen, balanced above its kill as everyone else began to go about repair and retrieval tasks. 

The other Evangelion units had already been returned to the geofront, or were on their way. In a twist of fate they'd left the brooding beast alone with the city, thinking it as their savior. Just like the rest of the cities citizens had.

Then, somehow, Shinji could be heard throughout the city. Hell, there have even been newspaper articles of people claiming to be able to hear him on the other side of the planet. They could even recite what he said, although they all claim it was in their own native languages.

Which is stupid since Shinji only knew Japanese.

"I-"

Only a single syllable, but repair teams had stopped their work. People leaving their shelters, like me, had stopped in the doorways and turned towards their protector, the source of the sound.

"I . . . What is this?"

Slowly, everyone who could see Evangelion Unit 01, everyone near my shelter, shelter #9, turned to look at it. No one had ever seen or heard an Eva speak before. Most people weren't even sure if it was possible. Questions on the tip of their tongues, confusion in their minds, they turned to look at Unit 01 and Shinji.

"This song. Misato, who's playing that awful music over the radio?"

Silence reigned over the square. Unit 01 brought its right arm up to its head, attempting to massage its skull. It wasn't a drastic move, brief and un-threatening, but people nearby all took a step back. If they'd known what it was about to do, they'd have taken a lot more.

We couldn't hear the response from the command center. Maybe they said something wrong; maybe that's what drove him over the edge.

I'd always thought it was Asuka saying something insulting that drove him over the edge, but I'd never had the balls to say it to her face. Not the way she was after the incident.

But no matter why, Unit 01 decided to roar then. A raging hell storm of a roar, from the gut of a beast forty stories tall. I still think it should've deafened all of us there.

But it didn't. Or, at least it didn't deafen me. I never had a chance to ask anyone else gathered there. It all happened too fast.

It was strange, but over Unit 01's roar I could hear a quieter voice, Shinji's voice. And behind it I thought I could hear a hint of music too. Just a brush of a piano, the haze of an orchestra. There seemed to be no tune to it, a great discord that pulled at my mind.

Some part of me has always thought I missed out greatly, not hearing the song that Shinji could hear. Another part of me, neither the scientist nor the insane part, still thinks it's what drove him mad.

"It- It's all pointless. . . I can see it now. This little world doesn't even matter to them."

We all watched, horribly transfixed to wherever we stood. Shinji's voice began to take on a more menacing voice as he continued, something that seemed unnatural to it.

The distant music grew closer now. It was like listening to gibbering monkeys trying to play a symphony. Everything about the music seemed wrong.

"We don't even warrant their hate! They couldn't care less if we lived or died. We're just ants to them."

Then Unit 01 stopped its roaring and the plaza grew quiet. Everyone stared at the gargantus in shock and with a bit of horror. The tension could've been raked by Unit 01's claws. To me, everything in existence seemed to hang on whatever Shinji would say next.

"So let the blood-dimmed tide be loosed upon this world. Like so many others before it."

The words have never left my mind. No matter how hard I try, no matter how long it's been. No matter how far I go.

Seconds after Shinji finished speaking Unit 01 smashed the first building, sending repair workers plummeting to their death and debris hurdling towards civilians. Then he'd turned his eyes on the masses gathered around him.

I stood paralyzed in shock as he killed those who ran. A few did manage to make it into the shelter.

It didn't help them when he put his fist through it.

* * *

Chapter 1 is over. 

It's been awhile since I've posted (or written) anything. I've been reading and reviewing quite a bit lately, so I suppose its only natural that my creative itch would choose this time to scratch itself.

There will be three chapters in this fic. The other chapters should be out from anytime between a week and a month. Although, it might be sooner.

As my readers may know from my ramblings, I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve as a writer. After reading Children of an Elder God for the third time, it struck me that I might try some sort of horror. And wa la (sp?) this was born.

As always, feel free to leave a review.


	2. My Sanity On The Funeral Pyre

Thanks to all reviewers.

* * *

"God, I envy you Shinji!" 

It was just another typical school day. A typical day, back when I thought Shinji had everything I'd ever want. Back when I'd envied his life. Back four years, before Shinji had gone away. Back when I'd been a silly little otaku.

If there's one thing I'm happy about my life now, one thing I've gained out of life going to hell in a hand basket, it's not having to be a silly little otaku anymore.

Shinji sighed and put his backpack down. Turning to face me, his face holding the melancholy I did and have always associated with him, he asked why.

Why I would envy someone who gets to pilot a giant robot? Why I would want to live with an absolute babe like Misato? Or maybe he wanted to know why I'd want to get into NERV, into the very heart of military secrecy and power?

Why I would want to slowly lose my sanity? Why I'd like to have a father who abandoned me after my mother died? Why I'd like to be nothing but a tool in another man's pocket? Why I'd want to have only a few hours left to live?

Now I can only look back at my younger self, the person that Shinji knew, with contempt. I was so stupid back then, not understanding what really went on. Not understanding the horrors he must have faced in his Evangelion, the uncertainty of whether or not he'd come back from the next mission. Not understanding just how hard his life was. What the day in and day out hardships did to his sanity.

And now I'm following in his footsteps.

"You get to work at NERV, live with a hot babe like Misato, and pilot an Evangelion! What hot blooded male wouldn't envy you!?"

I shrunk back a little after his response, surprised by what he'd said. Usually after I pulled the "hot blooded male" sentence he'd just sigh and tell me I didn't understand. But this time he'd said something different.

"Any sane one."

Shinji was always, if anything, fairly predictable. Even if it hadn't been something as insulting as "Any sane one," I'd have been surprised. This went doubly so for what he said this time.

"Huh?"

At the time, I didn't think anything of it. But judging on what happened that night, when it started snowing, I think I might have overlooked something crucial. You see, this may not be true for everywhere, but in Tokyo-3 people don't talk about sanity all that much. Seeing as Shinji went insane that night, I can't help but feel bad. Since that day, since the incident, I've had to live with myself. I've had to live with myself knowing that I overlooked a warning sign. Someone could have taken Shinji off of the pilot roster if I'd mentioned the incident to them. Then nothing would've happened.

But, with time, I've gotten over it. No one could have guessed what would happen, and I can't beat myself up over it forever. Not like Shinji would've if it had been me who got hurt instead of him.

He looked at me with strange eyes. Eyes different from the ones I was used to him having. Eyes that told of sleep deprivation.

"Look Kensuke, I didn't sleep that well last night. Sorry, but I'm just a little . . . tired."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure Shinji. Don't worry about it. It's not your fault."

My face showed some real concern. Not enough.

Touji picked then to noogie the both of us.

What might have been a serious and lifesaving conversation changed into a battle to the death. After that night, a part of me wanted to blame Touji for it. Blame him for interrupting that conversation I'd been having with Shinji.

But I didn't and don't think there's any way he could've known anything would happen anymore then I did. Plus, I'm certain he would've stopped if he had known.

"Have at you!"

That school day was the last time I ever saw Shinji face to face. I'd meet him again later that night, but it was his avatar that I faced off with.

I wish that my otaku self had been smarter, that it had realized some small part of what was going on. That it had done something to stop the waterfall of events that occurred, or even tried for that matter. I think, if it had, I'd even be able to put up with it today.

Instead, I can only feel contempt for that part of my past.

* * *

I'm moving at a high speed underground, probably in the geofront. Walls enclose me, surround me. Bright lights hit me as I stand, checking my plug suit for last minute necessities. I've long since depressed the single switch on my right wrist, sealing the suit around me tightly. It feels warm. 

As I clench my fists in and out, I slowly relax. It feels good to get rid of the stress from the school day by doing this. I've always found it soothing for some reason. Maybe my mother taught me how to do it, I don't know.

Something else moves in the elevator. I'm not alone.

I glance over my right shoulder and find Rei standing there. Her face is calm and impassive but, as I look at her, she makes a small smile. Not much, but it makes me feel good that I could make her smile. Glad that I could've been the one to teach her to do that, back after our fight with the fifth angel.

But I'm not alone with Rei. Just as I instinctively knew she'd be over my right shoulder, I can tell Asuka will be across from her, over my left shoulder. Probably leaning against the wall, relaxed against it. She'll look like she has not a care in the world, but I know she's contemplating our newest foe. The ever approaching twenty-third angel.

Sure enough, when I turn to look at her, Asuka is in the exact position I had expected of her. You don't spend months living with someone and not pick up little nuances of the way they stand, the way they walk, the way they act.

"Enjoying the view?"

The way they make fun of you when they catch you staring at them. Her voice is a mix of sarcasm and amusement. Teasing me is, I'm sure, one of her favorite past times.

With a sigh I voice this sentiment. My voice comes out lighter and a little more embarrassed then I'd expected it to be. It feels like I haven't heard it in a long time.

"Well, since I **do** get to do it all the time . . ."

I crack a small smile at this. She's smiling as well. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Rei continuing to do the same.

After a moment I let my smile slacken a little, but not totally disappear, and turn back towards the front. I face toward the elevator doors that will soon deposit us outside of our Evangelion units, ready to deploy against the latest threat. As I watch and consider the coming battle we start to slow down, approaching our departure point.

"Cheer up Shinji. With the three of us going out there, there's no way any lousy bug is gonna beat us!"

I nod calmly and smile a little bit wider. "Yeah, especially the way the last couple angels have been."

"Yeah! Like that last one. Ugh! It was so pathetic, I'm surprised NERV even classified it as an angel."

"Yeah . . . but it sure gave you a hard time!"

The memory of watching Asuka run around, trying, in the most hilarious way possible, to get the last angel off Unit 02's back, makes me laugh. It isn't that I think it's funny that she could have been hurt, it is that now, after the battle and her rescue, the memory seems hilarious. The angel really had been just a blob, with little to no offensive capabilities. It had looked funny when Asuka had not been able to reach it, Unit 02's arms just a little too short to scrape it off. The angel had wriggled, almost looking like it was laughing as she struggled. I'd jumped to help her during the "battle", but now it's too funny to not laugh at.

Rei brightens a bit as well, also reliving the memory. Asuka, however, doesn't seem to enjoy it quite as much as the other two of us.

"Hey! That thing could've really hurt me, you know?"

I wipe my eye and decide to keep the smile. "Yeah, I know. That's why me and Rei decided to help out . . . remember?"

"I don't think hitting me in the head with a boat is what I'd call help!"

"Well if you'd just stopped squirming we could've gotten it off faster!"

This sets off another wave of laughter, from all three of us this time. It's good to know that Asuka can take a joke now, even if it is at her expense. Not too long ago saying something like that would've forced her to make some sort of a rebuke to save pride.

I finish wiping yet another tear from my eye and we all relax. The smiles on our faces are now permanent, as all three of us are now in good modes.

"I'm strange that we can talk like this now."

"What do you mean Wundergirl?"

"Well, it's just that a few months ago we all practically hated each other. Right Rei?"

She nods. "Yes. Before Instrumentality, the three of us would never have had this sort of a conversation. I think I'd have exploded if I tried to say this much at once."

"Yeah! You were always so quiet back then. What was up with that?"

That sort of kills the mood. We all know that we were different a couple months ago, back before Instrumentality, but we don't necessarily like to talk about what we were like back then. It feels strange now, to look at myself back then. I can't help but wonder, what was I thinking for all those months?

But, as all three of us begin to somber up, I decide I don't want this to happen. I don't want Asuka to feel bad for ending the conversation like that and I don't want Rei to start worrying about her past. I decide I don't want it to end here.

Steadily, I lift my right hand and put it on Asuka's right shoulder, placing my left on Rei's left. They look at me, confusion and surprise on their faces. This is something the old Shinji never would've done.

But I'm the new Shinji Ikari.

"We're gonna have to have more of these sort of talks."

It's simple and not very long. Just because I'm different now doesn't mean that everything about me has changed.

But it conveys the message to the two of them. Asuka puts an arm on my right shoulder and puts her other one with mine on Rei's shoulder. Rei follows.

The three of us share a smile and a nod. Right now I feel content, even if I have had a hard time sleeping lately.

"Wow, looks kinky."

Our hands fall from each others shoulders and the three of us turn to face the now open elevator door and Misato. Although I can't see either of my friends now, I can tell that they're as embarrassed as I am. Sheepish might be the word.

Asuka is the fastest to recover.

"C'mon Shinji, Rei, we've got us a bug angel to squish!"

And then we exit the elevator, receiving the briefing from Misato as we walk towards our Evangelions.

* * *

Having a spider three times the size of my Eva push me down a street is not what I'd call fun. Being pushed through buildings by an angel, with its mandibles still trying to crunch down on my unit's head as I'm pushed, isn't my idea of fun either. Luckily, I'd managed to get my hands in between them. Pushing back against the jaws seemed to keep them at bay effectively. 

"How soon?"

After entering and exiting the third building we stop, my back pressed against a block of concrete that miraculously held, balanced at an angle between the ground and another building. The Angel begins to use its leverage, pushing its mandibles closer and closer to my chest. Soon it would all be over, my core pierced by the jagged blades of the angel.

"I'm still a few blocks away, but Rei should be coming on you no-" Asuka's voice is interrupted by Rei's arrival.

Rei bursts through a building to my left, sending debris cascading onto the angel. It, for the most part, ignores the pin pricks if must feel as the concrete is deflected off its exoskeleton.

It cannot, however, ignore the chain mace Rei had been spinning, which she has now buries into the angel's abdomen. It shrieks and attempts to strike at Rei with its legs, but she's too close now. It can no longer curl its legs enough to hit her, only shriek and attempt to hit her with its main body.

"We've got it now!" I yell over the com, my enthusiasm getting the best of me.

Then the angel brings its legs in close, spinning around on them. The centrifugal force whips me around, causing my Eva's hands to lose their grip on the spider's mandibles and sending me flying through the air and into . . . more buildings.

In the heat of battle, it only takes me a minute to struggle up. Crushed concrete and metal surrounded me, a heavy dust in the air. But somehow, I can still see through it.

I see Asuka arrive, just in time for her to witness Rei getting a full facial of webbing from the angel's spinneret. She falls into a building. The webbing, showing amazingly liquid like qualities, seems to run down her Eva until it reaches the ground. Upon contact it begins to harden, cementing her Eva to the earth.

Rei tries to struggle, but the harder she fights the less of an impact her struggles seem to make.

"I apologize, but I think I'm out."

I nod coolly. "Alright. Asuka, it's you and me."

"Got it. Watch the end."

"And the jaws."

I see her nod. "And the jaws."

The angel, now facing opponents on either side of it, turns its head back and forth, examining the two of us. Apparently it decides that I won't be able to keep up with it as easily as Asuka would.

It charges her. She disappears from my view, eclipsed behind the angel's massive bulk. I charge at it, hoping to be able to get around and do some serious damage while Asuka keeps it at bay.

The Angel forces me into a roll as the spinneret once again belches forth webbing. I come up near one of its legs, on the right side, and drive my hand into the leg, my fingers straightened into a knife shape. The leg, to my surprise, pops off with relative ease. I enter another spin, slashing the next leg off. It might not do much to kill the entire angel, but it will hamper its movement and eventually disable it.

As I assault the next leg, I see Asuka struggling with the angel's madibles in my peripheral vision. She's putting up a good fight, but the mandibles are steadily advancing. I need to do something now.

I run through my options. My progressive knife is long lost, thrown from my hand when I'd first tried to use it on the angel. That leaves me with only my Evas hands and feet . . . and its AT-field.

During Instrumentality we'd been instructed in just what an AT-field was, and how to use it most effectively. Of course, I'd been slightly pissed considering how useful that could've been had we been told about it sooner. If they'd told us how to really use an AT-field from the beginning, all the earlier angels would've been a breeze.

My father had instructed us to use it only during extreme emergencies. For this reason I hadn't used it in an active battle yet. The last few angels had been pushovers, to put it nicely.

But now was definitely an emergency. If I hesitated, Asuka would die.

Calling forth the void, reflected by barely visible orange hexagons, I wrap it tight around my hand and go to work on the angels abdomen. Black angel ichor begins to spray across Unit 01's chest, mixing with the blood from my earlier fall.

After a minute the Angel stops its convulsions. Deciding that I've killed it, I stop. Asuka is safe. I can stop and relax for a minute.

Then I hear a little buzzing sound start in my ear.

I stop my Eva over the Angel, looking down on it in confusion. The buzzing begins to steadily grow louder. It seems like it was there all along, just barely audible. And now, for some reason, it's starting to grow to an epic size. And my headache with it.

Somewhere behind the buzz I can hear Misato saying something. Miles away, I see Asuka getting up and cutting Rei free from the webbing. I see, without eyes, Asuka toss a glance my way and then I feel her say something. After a moment she disappears down a retrieval point, Rei quickly entering another one. All the while the buzzing grows and grows until I eventually realize what it is supposed to be.

It sounds like a song. But it isn't. It's too off beat, too random for even the wildest song. If it is a song, then a mad man definitely wrote it. The whole thing just seems . . . wrong.

I open my mouth to ask Misato who was playing the music.

* * *

I claw the sheets off my body and jump out of bed, racing for the toilet. I make it just in time, my previous day's meals spilling out. Bent over, heaving the contents of my stomach up, I think about the dream. 

It had all felt so real. Every little piece of the dream had been cruelly realistic. It had felt exactly like I was Shinji. I saw everything from his viewpoint; spoke every word he spoke, thought every thought he thought. It had felt like I'd been having one of the happiest moments of my life with Rei and Asuka in the elevator. Like I'd been in the heat of the battle, fighting for mine and my comrades lives. Like I had killed the spider angel. Like I had utilized my AT-field in order to save Asuka from certain doom.

Like the song had been playing in **my** head.

I'd had nightmares since the incident, but none as real or as raw as this. None from Shinji's point of view. None showing what might have happened before the fight, and during it. Most especially none showing after the fight, before the "incident".

Shivering, I manage to get back into my bedroom in order to look at the clock.

5:23

It's too early to get up, but I know I won't sleep again.

'_Shower_.'

Yeah, a shower would definitely feel good. It would get the cold sweat off of my body. And then I can wash my sheets. That should get rid of the smell of sweat. Then I'll change boxers and just lie in bed and think for awhile.

* * *

6:12 

I would've had school at eight o'clock, but NERV wanted me in for testing at seven-thirty. That means I have about an hour until I need to leave. 'Twenty minutes should be plenty of time to get through the labyrinth of NERV.'

But what to do until then. Sleep won't come, I'm sure of it. I could think of the dream . . .

No, better to think about anything besides that.

'_Think about . . . after the incident._'

After the incident? Yeah, that's right. Shinji going insane was only the beginning.

His death, and his funeral, were when everyone else started to crack.

* * *

It should've snowed the day of the funeral. Maybe that would've cooled off everyone else's emotions. Maybe that would've allowed everyone to think rationally. Act like intelligent human beings. 

It should've snowed a lot of days since the incident.

NERV organized a small funeral, consisting of just the people who knew Shinji well. It was probably what Shinji would've expected. He had always seemed oblivious to the number of people's lives he'd touched.

And now in more ways than one.

Asuka was there. So was Rei, despite the circumstances. And me, Touji, and Hikari.

A few people from NERV came as well. Misato, her boyfriend, and Ritsuko were the only people I recognized. There was a trio of technicians standing with them, a pretty looking girl, a long haired guy and someone who could've been my older brother. Off to the side stood some men in black suites, all looking somber. I think they were Shinji's Section 2 guard.

Misato cried. Misato cried a lot. Misato cried on her boyfriend's shoulder until it was sopping wet. Neither Touji nor I made a crack about how we'd have liked to be the one she was crying on.

As often happens in funerals, people gathered in clusters. By the fact that I knew almost no one else there, I gathered with Touji, Hikari, and Asuka.

For awhile it was quiet, each of us left alone with our own thoughts of Shinji. I know that I for one couldn't get the last moments of Shinji's life out of my mind. The funeral took place less than a month since Shinji's death, and what I'd seen in and outside of Shelter #9 still traumatized me. I don't think I even said anything during the entire funeral.

There was little small talk. One by one, each person walked up to the coffin and gazed into it. Gazed into the empty coffin.

"There isn't even a body."

Hikari, who was probably the person at the funeral who knew Shinji the least, still cried her share of tears. Probably more then her share of tears. Touji's shirt was soaked by the time we left.

"No. I never really expected there to be one for any of us."

Asuka spoke quietly, the fire seemingly gone from her voice. I think she was still in shock. The way she'd always talked, piloting Eva was just as dangerous as crossing the street, possibly less so. When she'd spoken of Eva it hadn't been with fear, it had been with pride. I don't think she'd ever expected any of the pilots to die.

Least of all the invincible Shinji.

"Something, was seriously wrong with him."

"Asuka!" Hikari gasped. "How can you say that about him?"

Touji also didn't look very happy. Having Shinji die, puny little Shinji, who had never stopped apologizing to Touji for indirectly causing him to lose his limbs, hit him hard. Right now he looked like he'd be perfectly happy to take that his anger at Shinji's death out on Asuka.

But despite his flexing and the menacing looks he began to throw towards her, Asuka remained clueless. It was with a small smile and a slightly sick laugh that she continued.

"No Hikari, I didn't mean like that. I mean that he didn't just snap all at once. There were . . . signs."

My eyes widened at this, remembering back to the conversation I'd had with Shinji the last time I saw him.

"Things all of us should've seen... me most of all. Something was going on with him and I'm going to find out what. I don't think what happened was his fault. I don't think . . . he meant to do what he did. I think NERV is up to something behind our backs."

"NERV?"

Surprisingly, it was Touji who spoke.

"How can you just accuse NERV like that? Haven't they always been good to you?"

There was anger in his voice.

"To me? Yes. Shinji? No. Hell, his own father won't even come to his funeral. He's off working on some stupid project."

This seemed to put Touji down.

"Bastard wouldn't even come to his own son's funeral."

Asuka turned to her left and spit on the carpet. Lazily, my eyes followed the spit until it hit the ground. I stared at it for a moment, my head spinning about what Asuka had said.

Surprisingly, I heard a smacking sound, not unlike a slap. I turned, and found Rei's arm outstretched and a red mark on Asuka's face.

Asuka didn't yell. Her voice, when she did speak, was thick with anger and venom, despite the low tone.

"You'd dare even come here . . . after what you did to him."

"You will not insult Commander Ikari."

Rei's voice was exactly as I remember it being when I first spoke with her in the seventh grade. It was weird, hearing it revert all of the way back to that. I had thought her cured of the quiet and lonely manner she'd always had. She had seemed more normal, more natural, after Shinji came.

But now that Shinji was dead all bets were off.

It was the Section 2 guards who pulled them apart, or rather Asuka off of Rei. Rei was covered in bruises, having made no attempt to either protect herself or stop Asuka from inflicting the pain on her.

"You bitch!"

For a moment it seemed like Asuka might break free of the two Section-2 guards who were holding her, but her burst of energy soon died out. She slumped down against the wall and the guards let her go, taking care to stay between her and Rei. Now sitting on the floor, her face cradled in her arms, she spoke again, choking back a sob.

"How could you do that to him Rei? Af-after all he's done for you? How could you be that cold . . .?"

"I followed my orders."

"To hell with orders!"

Asuka, apparently refueled, slowly rose. She was still leaning heavily on the wall, but now she looked at Rei, her eyes no longer covered by her red hair. Her fingers were tightly balled into fists, showing no signs of relaxing. I caught a glance of her eyes.

I saw tears in her eyes. If someone had told me those eyes would be crying a few days before the battle, I wouldn't have believed someone. Not Asuka's eyes. She was too strong for that.

But now, I'm not even slightly surprised.

"You should've done something more! You should've waited for me so we could do something to help him!"

"Y-you did not see what he was like! What he was doing . . . all those people . . . what he was saying as he did it. There was no way we could help him. That was not S-"

This seemed too much for Rei; she turned away and walked over to the coffin. After staring into it for a moment, she turned and walked out of the room.

Asuka eased back against the wall. Hikari was quickly by her side, trying to comfort her. But Asuka would not have it. She pushed Hikari away.

"I don't need your sympathy."

Asuka rose and left the room from a different set of doors then Rei had used. As she went by I heard her whisper, "I'll find out what made you go away Shinji-Chan. I'll make them pay for what they did to you."

Touji went over to comfort a fretting Hikari, leaving me alone. Slowly, I walked towards the coffin and gazed into it for a long moment, surprised by the dampness evident on it.

It had been dry earlier, back before Rei had come up to it.

I stood there for a long time, just gazing into the coffin and what were evidently Rei's tears.

Rei's tears. The concept was as vague and incomprehensible to me as Asuka's tears. Rei had always seemed so cold, but now I could see how much she must have really felt. How she must have kept the feelings bottled up inside of her. If I know one thing, it's that this isn't healthy.

Eventually, having dealt with Hikari, Touji came back.

"Ken."

There was a long silence, neither one of us really knowing what to say.

"I just can't believe that he's gone. Of all the people. You know-"

Then, something takes Touji. Something both of us had always wanted to have. But now I strangely didn't care for it.

"Touji."

Misato.

"Yes, Misato?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute, alone?"

Touji carefully glances my way, I'm sure of it. Even thought I'm not looking at him I can feel his eyes on me, worrying about my reaction to Shinji's death. I nod, still starring into the wet wood. He leaves, going to talk to Misato. This left me alone with my thoughts until the funeral ended.

All the candles went out; leaving me to think about what would be different now that Shinji had died.

* * *

End Chapter 2. 

This chapter really evolved as I wrote it. I started with a few things, but I think if I'd just stayed with those it would've been really boring. Most of what I'd origonally planned was just filler. As it turned out though, I think it's about equal to the first chapter. Maybe even better.

All OOC in the elevator and fighting scenes was intentional.

Thanks to all three of my reviewers. I think the first chapter got a fairly good response, thanks to all of you.

But now I need to bitch about something. Can anyone tell me why you'd alert a story, then not review it? I don't want to name names, but you two know who you are. Review this, please. I won't threaten to not update if you don't review, it's obvious that (with the exception of those who did review) you don't care anyway. Just remember, I'm more interested in the story and more prone to spend free time on it if I get some good advice/criticisms/comments.

Next chapter should be out sometime next week. Thanks for reading.


	3. Come Clarity

Well, I go and complain about reviews, then take this long to write the next chapter after I get more. Foot in mouth! Still, thanks to everyone who did review.

This is not the last chapter. After reviewing everything I had planned for chapter 3, I decided that it would work better in four chapters. Hopefully the finale won't take as long as this chapter did. So, without further adue.

* * *

Shelter #9: Chapter 3 

Come Clarity

* * *

"I-I can't deal with all of this anymore…I can't deal with all of you." 

"Touji! Don't do this…it's not fair to you! It's not fair to…us."

The scene? It is early in the morning, later in our mourning. Myself, Hikari, and my main man Touji are on the roof of the school. It's been a little bit more then a year since Shinji's incident.

Touji's on the edge, literally.

He's looking back at the two of us, me and Hikari, with the four story fall inches behind his' heels. All it would take is one step directly backwards, with either leg, and Touji would plummet to his most unfortunate, and certain, death.

"Don't you dare take another step buster!"

Hikari was practically in a panic. I could tell she wanted to rush forward and grab Touji before he could even think to keep on going with his plan, but I also know that she can't do it. Touji's the class jock, and therefore the largest guy in our class. And that means he's quite a bit bigger then Hikari. That means that even if she were to get to Touji, she probably wouldn't be able to physically stop him from doing whatever he wants. That is, if his convictions about this are as strong as they seems to be.

"Touji? Man …"

I wasn't really there when Touji needed me most. I had begun my metamorphosis into a more intelligent being, but the shock of Shinji's death and last rites would still gripe me absolutely from time to time. This was, unfortunately, one of those times. Seeing Touji follow in Shinji's footsteps had that effect on me. I stood a few feet behind the ever inching forward Hikari, my glasses slipping down my nose slowly, yet steadily.

Hikari must not have realized how much heavier then her Touji was. The only way she could have stopped him from going was if she somehow made it so she'd have to go with him. That would have definitely forced him to stop and reconsider his choice. If only Touji had known what lengths she'd go to stay with him.

"Neither one of you can stop me. I've got too do this. I-"

His next words stopped Hikari completely in her tracks.

"-I care about this more then anything else in the whole world right now. It's my duty to fight those things. It just has to happen. Forgive me, but I've got to do it."

Then he made his final decision and took his first step down a path of insanity.

He took his step to his right, into the NERV VTOL that had come to pick him up so he could begin his new duties as the Fourth Children. I watched as a military crewman helped him into the gunship. Hikari and I only viewed him in silence as he was strapped into the seat. He gave us one last look, which seemed to say that he was sorry that it had to happen this way, before the VTOL fires up its engines and begins too fly away, whisking him away from our world.

We stood there for awhile, dropping our gazes to the ground as the VTOL left our field of vision. I can't say what Hikari felt, although I'm sure it was agonizing, but I felt disappointed.

At that point, even after all that had happened with Shinji and Unit 01, I still felt jealous that NERV picked Touji to pilot instead of me.

'And why wouldn't they pick me?'

I was the only one who ever wanted to pilot Eva for real, with the possible exception of Asuka. NERV had to force everyone else to do it! Do they really like forcing children to pilot those things? Is Commander Ikari really that sadistic? He must be, otherwise I'd have been picked long before.

'Maybe if I acted like I didn't want to pilot anymore, they'd look at me more seriously…'

As the last thought echoes through my brain, Hikari turns around. Glancing up, I see tears in her eyes. This didn't surprise me, all of my surprised facial expressions having slowly faded from use in the previous months. I now feel that just about anything could happen.

But it was obvious to me that Touji surprised Hikari with his decision. I felt glad that I'd become numb to such things.

"Why?"

It's open ended questions like this that I could never handle. On school tests, and in the real world. They bugged me. I could never wrap my mind on what 'why' meant all by itself. I just couldn't think deeply like that.

Maybe that was why they didn't pick me as a pilot.

"Why Kensuke? Why did he have to leave us? Why did he have to leave me? I thought we had something special…"

I had thought so too. But I guess friendships sell for a lot less then they used to nowadays. Just one giant robot sold mine and Touji's.

Although I couldn't have truthfully told Hikari that I wouldn't have sold out Touji in order to pilot an Eva.

My mind could deal with her latest round of questions a lot better then the first 'why', but my lips still refused to divulge any of the conclusions my mind was coming to. I could only stand there, forlorn and unable to giver her the answers she sought so desperately.

She started towards me and for a long moment I could almost see her running into my arms. I could see myself holding her and sweetly telling her it was all going to be alright. See the two of us loving each other since everyone else had abandoned us.

But that would have been a lie. And if there was one thing I knew, it's that you can't live a lie.

Hikari apparently realized this as well. Or, that might have been my pride coming up with a reason for why she didn't fall into my arms.

She ran past me and down the stairs to class. After a minute to gather myself, I followed.

Hikari began to throw herself into her job after Touji began his piloting duties. She began to work harder at maintaining order in the classroom. Striving harder to make sure that nothing was out of line.

At least, until NERV came to collect her as well. I can only hope she put as much work into piloting as she did into being class representative. She would've become a great pilot if that was the case.

But Hikari wasn't picked to pilot for almost another year after this memory. After Touji had completely stopped coming too school. After another angel had come and gone.

After she became a pilot, and I put aside my jealousy, I managed to ask Hikari if she ever saw Touji at NERV. When she answered, I couldn't quite tell if she was serious. I mean, she might've just been mad at him for leaving her, or not allowed to talk about it for some reason. Since I stopped seeing her after that talk, I was never able to properly clarify what she meant.

"Who?" She'd asked.

* * *

Years after the original incident with Shinji, I can feel surprised again. Such as now. The utter boredom I feel from taking a synch test surprises me. 

Here I am, sitting inside of an Eva's entry plug, surrounded by LCL, staring through the Eva's eyes at the cage. Nothing moves, unless I count the small blurs of the techs inside the command room. They're moving their arms, ever so slightly. Brushing a control here, depressing a button here. And I'm seeing them on an already small scale.

It's utterly shocking how bored I am. It's times like this that I can understand why Shinji was always so depressed.

I'd sleep, but that would mess up the test. Sleep would serve as a betrayal to the last few hours' hard work staying awake and surviving the boredom. It would cause the little trust I have left in myself to finally snap.

Sleep would be bad.

At least, that is until my vision suddenly cuts out and I find myself in a powered down entry plug. Nothing like this has ever happened in the couple dozen synch tests I've suffered through. Ritsuko, or whoever else was overseeing the test, would always tell me if I was done or warn me somehow if something was about to go wrong.

And now I'm surprised again. There is something more boring then a synch test. Being stuck in a powerless Eva, after just spending several hours in a synch test, is much more boring then I'd previously considered possible.

I don't surrender to sleep as much as I embrace it.

* * *

This time isn't like the other dreams. No, this time I actually realize that I'm dreaming. I know so because of my position. I'm not inside someone else, seeing from their vision and doing as they do. No one else's thoughts go through my head. 

My position feels more disembodied. It's like I'm floating in something, starring into a dark room, while I'm on the outside of it. I'm seeing through the wall somehow.

Light in the room comes from one central pillar, filled with LCL. It's a deeper red then I'm used to it being, but I can still tell that it is LCL.

Because of the poor lighting, it takes me a while to realize that there are other masses in the room. Well, two other people. At least, I assume they're people. Vaguely humanoid, I cannot tell who they are. Shifting around the edges of the room, still seeing from what feels like outside of the room, I can see their mouths moving.

I realize they're talking. And with this realization came another. I can hear them talk.

"-almost time." I think it was the larger of the two who was speaking. The voice enforces my suspicion that the two are in fact human.

Then they stop talking. As I wish that I'd started listening in earlier, they turn to look at exactly where I'm viewing them from. It's like they know I'm there.

But I have no body, so there's nothing for the two of them to see.

However, their looking at me does reveal who one of them is. Even the dim light from the LCL pillar, reflected off of his glasses, tells me that the taller of the two figures is none other then Gendo Ikari. He stands near the middle of the room, silently looking back at me.

My communications with the commander have been very limited. This is to say, I haven't seen him face to face since I've become a pilot. However, I didn't need to hear any of the multitudes of rumors going around to know just how strong willed and dangerous he can be.

He had been the one to chew me and Touji out after the fourth angel incident. After we'd almost stopped Shinji from destroying the angel. Needless to say, he'd taken more then a few strips out of the two of our' hides.

If I had a body, I would've flinched when his gaze came to rest on me. Instead, I turn away from his face. A quick glance tells me the form next to him is likely a girl a few years younger than me. After passing over her, my glance continues on to what appears to be the only door leading in and out of the room. It is closed, heavily armored, and apparently locked rather tightly.

But I can still hear footsteps coming from the other side of it.

Apparently Gendo and the girl hear them as well. Gendo doesn't seem to like this very much.

"Hide. Attack only if she physically harms me."

As I begin to wonder how the girl is supposed to stop the intruder if it becomes necessary, the figure at his side nods efficiently and slips away, seeming to gently glide from my sight. I blink.

'_How did she do that?'_

My thoughts are interrupted by the door opening with a soft hiss. Light spills into the dark room, fully revealing Gendo and the new entrant. Asuka Zeppelin Soryu. And she looks like she is out for blood. Following her gaze, I realize just who's blood she wants.

Uh-oh. This is a clash of the titans, and I don't want to be anywhere near them when they start at it.

"You are aware that these facilities are off limits to you, aren't you pilot Soryu?" Gendo speaks first, his right hand inserted into his pocket. His left hand hangs at his side, apparently ignored.

Oh well, too late now. Might as well watch the fight while if it's going to happen.

"I want answers." The redhead enters the room slowly. Judging from what I remember of Asuka's body posture, she's trying to restrain herself as much as possible. She's nothing less then a tiger, crouched and ready to spring on its prey. If Gendo makes one mistake, she'll ram his throat so full of angry responses that he'll never see the light of day again. Of course, since I haven't seen her for years, I could be wrong.

But this is Gendo Ikari we're talking about here. The man who holds our Earth in his hands, stares down the angels, and doesn't flinch. Because when he makes mistakes, chunks of humanity die.

I briefly remember the hidden figure, somewhere in the room. Silently watching in order to protect Commander Ikari. My mind wonders for a moment, considering her identity.

"I know everything." Asuka continues, marching closer to the center of the room and the only light source now that the door behind her has closed itself. When she stops she's less then fifteen feet apart from Ikari and me.

"Then what do you need answers for?" Gendo's response and sneer are perfectly coordinated, for the ultimate in knee-shaking-inducing effects. Any mere mortal would falter.

But Asuka doesn't falter.

"Admit it. You caused Shinji's death. You killed your own son."

"And why would I do that?"

"Instrumentality."

Now Gendo almost falters. His eyes narrow and his left hand instinctively begin to recover his glasses as they begin to slide down his nose. But he stops after his hand is less then halfway up.

"That's a classified project. Holding information on its effect is a capitol offence."

"I didn't read anything on them. I… found out about it another way."

"It does not matter how you found out. Simply knowing as much about Instrumentality as you claim to know is grounds for your removal from piloting. Leave now and I may…overlook this offence."

"I don't care about piloting anymore!"

That's news to me. Piloting was always Asuka's priority, above everything else in her life. It had occupied her every spare moment since she was five. Her saying that she'd give up piloting was like… like…

Like Shinji dying.

"I've seen … what you did to Shinji!"

"Seen?"

Gendo is skeptical. I'm genuinely interested, remembering my own visions of Shinji's last few days alive. Connection?

"I've dreamt of what happened to him. The events that lead up to Shinji's murder!"

"The pilot of Unit 01 was not murdered. Nor was he intentionally caused to do what he did. Surely you are not implying that NERV's commander in chief, me, would intentionally cause the deaths of thousands of civilians. Especially not with such flimsy evidence as that you've 'dreamt' it."

Yes, yes she was.

"Don't try to deny it! Last night I saw his last day. I saw his vision during the fight. I've noticed the manipulations, caused by you, which he missed. I saw through his eyes when that doll Rei killed him!"

Now this catches my attention. Asuka had had dreams as well? In fact, dreams that sounded strikingly familiar to the ones I'd been having. Dreams of the tail end of Shinji's life. Dreams leading up to his death. Revelations about all that occurred during his last day.

But if what she said was true, then I'd soon be having a dream of Shinji's actual death. I'd seen him fight the angel and go insane, but not his direct final moments. The seconds leading up to Rei sniping him from Unit 00.

'What happened to Asuka? It might matter to what will happen to me.'

It's a scary thought, judging from what little I do know about Asuka. The same thing happened to Asuka that … happened to everyone else. Touji, Hikari, Rei, half a dozen others. Everyone just vanished slowly. They'd spend less and less time at school, slowly entering into a shell. The longer since they'd started piloting, the less they'd talk.

Then they'd stop coming entirely.

Eventually an Angel would attack and somehow get beaten. Then NERV would come to pick another pilot. That pilot would slowly vanish into NERV as well. No trace ever remained besides memories. If they could, I'm sure NERV would erase those as well.

Was this what was going to happen to me?

I'd had less and less free time lately, the synch tests slowly but surely taking over my every waking moment. How soon until an angel attacked and I died? Would I go like Shinji?

Unfortunately, Asuka and Gendo were not polite enough to wait while I thought. Asuka had slowly closed on him, and surprisingly he'd given ground. Gendo now had his back against one of the walls, Asuka pointing a finger in front of her.

I didn't have time to start listening again before I saw Gendo do something. The reason he'd backed up was apparently to push some sort of button behind him. Suddenly, I became very worried for Asuka's physical security. I waited for something too happen. Eventually, it did.

The Angel Siren began to wail, cutting Asuka off.

Asuka hesitated, then narrowed her eyes and said, "This isn't over." She turned and walked out of the room, preparing to deal with the latest 'angel'.

The shock of what Gendo had just done slammed into me like a ton of bricks. Did this mean that he had created every angel, simply for this 'Instrumentality' project I'd heard so much about? Had everything been a ruse from the beginning?

Before I could think, a sound similar to the one I'd heard blaring in my dream awoke me. A real angel had arrived, and I was going out to face it.

Gendo be damned.

* * *

"Push! Push!" 

For some reason, the director of operations seems to think that shouting an order at me makes it so that I can actually do it. Switching off his annoying little voice, I return to my life or death struggle.

The angel and I have locked hands and are attempting to push the other back in order to gain ground and some sort of an advantage. Hence the director of operations yelled "push". Hence I ignored him and his worthless advice as best I could.

The angel, a humanoid appariation that had sickly yellow skin, six fingers and some **very **pointy looking teeth, fights me tooth and nail, and is steadily winning. It's managed to maneuver itself so that its arms are above mine, allowing it to push down while I have to push up. If I'd had more experience as a pilot, I might have noticed what it was doing before it could complete the action.

As it is, the angel forces me into a gamble.

Or, into what some might call a trip.

Not a trip of the angel, more of an accidental fall. I fall backwards, bringing the angel with me and causing it to overextend itself. As I lose my balance, so does it. This causes us to land fairly hard on the street we'd been grappling on.

I roll, come up, and return to a fighting stance. Spreading Unit 01's hands out in front of me, I prepare for when the angel will renew the assault. However, the angel hesitates for a brief respite. Because of said hesitation, I manage to check myself and make sure that I am truly fine.

I'm surprised to find myself without even a dull ache. Perhaps there is some advantage to a fifteen percent synch ratio. At least, that's what I tell myself.

Finally, the angel begins to dash recklessly towards me. Lacking any sort of plan or even basic training, I decide my only option is to follow suit. After all, this angel must know more about fighting then I do. And since it seems to think that charging is a good idea…

To my surprise, we meet more then halfway between our starting positions, Unit 01 having jumped ahead nimbly after my sluggish order was first sent. It also follows my order to uppercut the angel very quickly, perhaps even before I've **given** the order. Then the kick, once more before I even know to order it.

Unit 01 is a whirlwind around me. Eventually, I stop giving orders entirely and just watch it as it destroys the angel.

Has it gone berserk? Part of me thinks not, as I can still see what vicious things the beast is doing to the angel. Whenever questioned about the incident with the third angel, when Unit 01 first went berserk, Shinji used to always say that he didn't remember anything. Shinji wasn't known to lie, but what else could be operating Unit 01 in such a manner?

The battle is now wrapping up, and is entirely out of my control.

Unit 01 crushes the angel's core in its fist, and then everything goes blank. Something cut the power. But that's impossible. I'd seen the whole battle, and know for a fact that the angel never succeeded in severing the umbilical cable. Something is wrong here. The feeling of foreboding slowly grows the longer I wait in the plug.

Finally, mercifully, the plug starts up again. My eyes widen is disgust…

Human bodies lay strewn around me. The whole of Unit 01's vision seems shrouded in a slowly fading red, perhaps reflecting its currently satiated bloodlust. City blocks lay mangled at my feet, concrete thrown everywhere. The destruction is appalling.

I look down at my hands and wonder what I've become. Have I become the same as Shinji? After all this time, have I returned to do the same deed that he committed? How many other lives have I ruined today, how many lives have I ended?

Being a killer doesn't feel like I thought it would.

And I don't mean the old me. That Kensuke would've expected some sort of pride at having destroyed an enemy, an angel. It was his life long dream to become a soldier, and I'd never been stupid. Naïve, yes. Stupid, no. I'd known that a soldier would kill people. Practically since birth, I've known that I would kill people sometime in my life.

No, what the current me had expected was sick. I'd expected to hate myself for the deed, and feel angry that I'd shrunk to the level of killing another human being. I'd expected…no, **wanted** to feel remorse for such an action.

But all I feel now is some sort of a…understanding. I feel like, this is how it has to be. That this has to be done. None of it feels wrong, if feels like the first trulyrightthing I've ever done.

That scares me. I look down at my human hands…without glasses.

Something is wrong. Like Unit 01 had operated during the fight, my body does not respond to my orders. It's like it has a mind of its own. Like it's not my body.

Like I'm having another of the dreams.

It's amazing how relaxing it is on my conscious to have the burden of countless human lives taken off of it. If I could control this body, I would spasm from all the tension that is being released from my body.

Everything starts to come together. I've beaten the angel, passed out, and am now having a dream. But not just any dream, **the** dream. I'm sitting in Shinji again, during his last few moments. Using his eyes, I attempt to look for the blue of Eva Unit 00 that I know will come to kill him soon.

Because this is the time that Shinji Ikari dies.

"Shinji!"

Misato can be heard over the radio. I can hear her voice. It's been ages.

Apparently, Shinji doesn't care. He begins walking Unit 01 forward again, seeking more targets to destroy.

"Lieutenant, restrain yourself or I'll have you removed from this facility."

Gendo Ikari.

I now realize just how bad seeing and hearing this could be. I'll be hearing the orders given to kill Shinji, one of my best friends of all time. My mood shifts from revered attention to horror as I realize that I already know the ending to this particular battle.

And the "good guys" win.

"Rei. Prepare to launch and deal with Unit 01."

"B-but commander! What about the pilot of Unit 01?"

The radio is staticy and unclear, perhaps an attempt at jamming from the other end. Still, Unit 01 manages to pick up the audio feed and deliver it to the pilot. The body I inhabit shows no interest, only continuing to move the Eva forward, towards another group of buildings. The sound of Unit 01's steps resonates inside of the entry plug as we steadily draw nearer to more pale creatures, ripe for the slaughter.

Asuka is next to come over the radio. "You can't be serious. Rei, you can't kill the baka!"

"Asuka's right. Rei, you've got to back off so we can try and talk him down." Misato attempts to support her ally.

"We have already tried that…" There is a trace of doubt in Rei's voice. I recall how she had acted during the funeral, and during the elevator scene I'd witnessed from Shinji's perspective. The beginning sounds closer to the Rei in the elevator, but seems to fade towards the funeral Rei near the end.

"Rei. Proceed up launch pad 23-T and engage Unit 01. As the Second Children does not appear fit to pilot at this time, she will remain inside of the geofront."

After Gendo finishes speaking, I feel Shinji's eyes dart towards a nearby building. From the weapons and retrieval points I'd memorized, I realize that he's looking towards launch pad 23-T. Apparently, he's paying more attention to the conversation then I'd given him credit for.

"No. Let me go up there and talk to him. He'll listen to me…he has to!" Asuka's voice is stressed with fear. It doesn't sound quite natural to her. "Rei, listen to me. You can't seriously think about going up there and doing this to him! Not after all he's done for you."

Rei is silent for a moment. Then, "Ikari, must if be done this way?"

The junior having given no answer, the elder takes it upon himself. "Rei. Each moment you hesitate, more people die." Unit 01 put its arm through a building, backing him up. I can practically envision Misato and Asuka wincing. "You must stop him now, in any way possible."

"I hear…and obey."

"No!" Asuka and Misato both yell over the com-link.

"Rei! You doll! Don't let him control you like this! Don't-" Then Asuka is somehow cut off.

Lesser techno-babble begins to fill the communications channel, but Shinji is no longer hearing it. He pauses very deliberately, then after the fifteen seconds it takes for a transport to reach the surface, turns and sprints towards the launch tube Rei will be coming out of. As the final locks are disengaged and the panel is about to lower and reveal Unit 00, Unit 01 slams into the building.

Crushing through the steel superstructure, Shinji has one immediate thought. There is no Eva in the building, only an empty elevator. Turning, he's able to look and see Unit 00, almost a mile away, its sights set on Shinji's head.

"Ikari-kun…I am sorry. If you had not attacked the building where you thought I was…I would not have been able to do this." Then she fires the positron rifle.

Red hot blistering pain lances through Shinji's forehead. He collapses, the entry plug beginning to fade as he dies. His synch rate, greatly improved by his berserk fury, has made him all the weaker to higher level pains. What might have only knocked a lesser pilot out sends him down the path to complete death.

Over the com, I can hear two separate women, one screaming obscenities and another softly crying. "Shinji...oh, Shinji..."

The snow slowly coats Unit 01's punctured form as Unit 00 turns away and enters an elevator shaft. Then all my visions fail and I'm pulled back into unconsciousness, perhaps death, with Shinji.

* * *

End Chapter 3. 

Besides the noticeable lag in time between updates, I had to force the beginning of this chapter. Usually I can just wait until the creative urge strikes, then make a chapter in a few hours. This time, after getting nothing for about a week, I found myself needing to get it out. Let me know if you think it shows.

Thanks to Dartz-IRL, jcmoorehead, Swedish15, Jose Hernandez and D24gOn for constructive criticism. Special thanks to jcmoorehead, who has included this story in his C2: Project OE. This is a C2 with a lot of good, yet underappreciated stories in it, so be sure to take a look.

Next update will be faster. I swear.


	4. Glass Prison

This is the final chapter in the Shelter Number 9 saga. I enjoyed writing this a lot more then the last chapter. I think one of the major reasons I had a hard time with Chapter 3 was the plot. It didn't start very well, so I wasn't horribly motivated to get going. For that reason, this ones starts off a little bit better.

Thanks to all my reviewers.

* * *

Shelter Number 9 

Chapter 4: The Glass Prison

* * *

I awake suddenly…or do I? 

No. I'm back in the same room as one of my earlier dreams. The dark room, with the LCL pillar in the middle of it. The first thing that draws my attention is, once more, the tube of LCL. I examine it closer now, deciding that this LCL is definitely different from the LCL I've used for synch tests and my battle. It looks like it has a different texture. It seems almost…blocky. Like there are small chunks of something floating in it.

I still feel the same disembodied feeling I felt the last time I dreamed of this room. There is still only one door in and out of the room, and it is still closed securely. Like before there are the sounds of speech, which I intend to listen to as soon as I hear them. But like the first time, they fade as soon as I begin to pay attention.

But that's where the similarities end.

The most obvious difference is that this time, Gendo Ikari does not stand across the room talking to someone else. No, this time he's less then five feet away from me, staring directly at where I would be if I were physically in the room. I know that I can see through the wall, but nothing so far has revealed that he can as well.

Unless I count him starring straight at my position.

A second difference from the last time is that the lights in the room are on now. This reveals several dozen computers and desks that I had not been able to properly identify during my previous visit. The light also shines on the opposite side of the room, which has a plexi-glass wall with LCL similar to the stuff in the central tube filling it.

Well, it isn't just the opposite wall that has the tank running along it. The tank of LCL curves along the sides of the room to…where I am.

It's more then a subtle shock to me that an LCL tank surrounds the room I'm viewing. More so that I'm actually in that tank. The LCL stinks heavily of conspiracy now. It's like some sort of a top secret government research lab, one that my younger self had always envisioned being in NERV. Scientists would do illegal activities, such as human cloning, here.

But that can't be true. There are no clones here after all.

Now there is a reason for having just one way in and out of the room. The reason why access to this room is restricted, as Gendo told Asuka, is becoming apparent. Now Gendo starring directly at where I am makes sense. Now there's a reason why I can see Gendo through the walls of the room. Now I can tell why a speaker's words seem to lag behind their mouth when they speak. I have been hearing through thick glass and LCL.

But still, Gendo continues to stare intently at my position. He stares through what I can now tell is inches thick glass, yet I can feel the full brunt of his attention upon me. It makes me wonder what exactly he's looking at, as the changes in the rest of the room have not brought with them a feeling of me having any sort of a physical body.

I am, literally, nothing for him to look at.

But his gaze makes me feel like he is looking directly into my soul. It is like he's examining my every inner facet and weighing my worth with those eyes. Those eyes…

Those eyes that a part of me says belong to my father.

As I have no body, I cannot try to move to see how much control over this existence I have. So, as I struggle to understand just what the hell is going on, I have no real way to check to make sure I'm still Kensuke Aida.

The thought that I am still viewing from Shinji's perspective, as I steadily begin to suspect, terrifies me. And for good reason.

Strangely, it makes sense that this would be from Shinji's perspective. Besides the last dream in this room and the current one, every dream has been from Shinji's perspective. This being from Shinji's perspective would make it so only that one was not. And Gendo has to be starring at me for **some** reason. Hadn't Asuka said she'd seen Shinji's last few days and the reason he went insane? Hadn't I decided that I would be seeing Shinji's last few days soon? This could easily be them now.

If this was from Shinji's perspective, it could mean that this has something to do with how he went insane. The repercussions would be astounding, the possibilities near infinite.

Maybe someone had drugged Shinji, so that he wouldn't have remembered or seen this. But Asuka, not suffering from the drugs, could've seen what happened here from her dream perspective. Maybe that was what she meant when she said she saw the events leading up to Shinji's death.

It could mean that Gendo has cloned Shinji, and is planning to have an army of him run around as his henchmen. He might plan to fight the angels with multiple copies of NERV's greatest pilot, in order to more effectively gain power. The little that remains of my younger otaku self cries valiantly in support of this possibility.

So I ignore it, of course.

There are so many possibilities of what this dream might be, if I really am seeing from Shinji's perspective. A near finite number of things could've resulted from this event. It's mind boggling how this could affect my physical reality.

Still, the nagging question of why Shinji would have no body now continues to bug a piece of me.

Of course, this is all assuming that this is Shinji's perspective I'm seeing from. In fact, I'm almost positive it is now.

'Prove it.'

The scientist speaks to me for what seems to be the first time in decades. With the thought comes an abstract concept. Clearly, the scientist wishes for me to understand a complex issue.

Time…look for a clock?

It wants me to see a clock, so that I can tell the time. Simple really. A clock would tell me how soon until Shinji's death would occur. The time could clear up a lot of the excess questions bubbling in my head by eliminating possibilities. Answers would then be one step closer.

I glance into the room at the center of my glass prison, frantically searching for a clock. With surprising aptitude, my eyes land on one of the computers. Although it's over fifteen feet away, I can still see the time and date in the lower right hand corner.

February 28, 2016.

I freeze. If I had palms, they'd have begun to itch. If I had skin, it would've begun to sweat. The date isn't just any one. This is an important one, a date burned into my mind eternally.

This is a date burned into my mind eternally as the day of Shinji Ikari's funeral. This, whatever it is, is what Commander Ikari was working on during Shinji's funeral. This was why Shinji's father didn't come to the departure of his "body".

This isn't before Shinji's death and insanity, it's afterwards. His body is missing because Rei and Unit 00 have destroyed it. I'm seeing things from the perspective of Shinji's spirit. Gendo has trapped Shinji's simulacrum in this glass prison in order to study, experiment on, and do who knows what else to it.

It slowly dawns on me how this would affect me earlier dream. The dream with Asuka confronting Gendo. That dream had been from Shinji's perspective as well. Shinji had seen Asuka talking to Gendo and been unable to do anything about it.

Asuka had been right. Gendo had set this all up. He'd orchestrated everything from the start, including Shinji's last few days of life. All in order for his son to end up here, trapped as a soul. All for, I begin to suspect, true Instrumentality.

What other reason could there be besides Instrumentality? Nothing else has seemed to dominate Gendo's actions as much as NERV's primary project. Nothing has had any semblance of control over his operations, save Instrumentality.

Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and all the other pilots, me included, have been tricked into thinking that Instrumentality has been completed and that it is over and done with. That it was not only quick and painless, but enjoyable. It had helped us.

It had blinded us. Now I see it as what it truly is. Desolation of the spirit.

The lie we have been living since Instrumentality has been just to silence questions about the true project. Everyone who would've been skeptical of Instrumentality has been silenced by its 'completion'.

Instrumentality has turned my life into a living hell, starting by killing Shinji Ikari. Then, by taking my friend Touji-

Wait. Have all the other pilots been trapped in here as well? Turning my focus into the rest of the tank around me, I can see that there would be plenty of room for other souls. Room for Asuka's soul, Touji's soul, Hikari's soul. In fact, depending on how massive a soul really is, the souls of everyone who has ever piloted Eva could easily fit in this room.

Would I be joining them soon? I worry it will be so.

Asuka had seen what happened to Shinji, but I doubted that she had ever seen this. Otherwise she'd have recognized this room during her confrontation with Gendo. She would have done something to try to save Shinji's soul. Something to save him from this cruel fate.

Now I can only rationalize that she had eventually succumbed to the same state as Shinji. After all, she had all but disappeared off of the face of the earth. Her and everyone else who had ever piloted Eva. Perhaps the same angel that Gendo had summoned to get her out of his way during the last dream had finished her. Maybe Shinji had gotten a roommate in this trap, only a few months after his own "death", on the same day as he and I saw Asuka confront Gendo.

It was scary to think that Asuka, who had also had these sorts of dreams, had not been able to thwart Gendo. While I'd always disliked her personality, I'd always admired her mental and emotional capabilities. She'd been able to unravel the plot much sooner then I had, and with fewer dreams. She hadn't seen this dream, which had practically spelled out Gendo's whole plan, and she'd been able to put together so much more of the puzzle than me. If she failed, what chance did I have?

What chance did I, the nerdy and pathetic Kensuke, have when every one of my stronger, smarter friends had failed? There had been a good half dozen pilots of Eva over the years and I had never heard much of any of them after they started piloting. Each one of them, like Asuka, had silently faded away. If she had succumbed to the same fate as Shinji, then they all must have as well. How was I supposed to have a chance when so many others passing before me had failed? Hadn't NERV picked those children because they were stronger than me in every way? If so, my fate is surely sealed.

My mind chooses now to remember where my physical body is. Sitting in a powered down Evangelion, perhaps waiting for this same fate that I watch Shinji suffer to befall me. The defense mechanism all humans have, fight or flight, kicks in and begins to awaken me so that I might somehow survive the trap laid bare in front of me.

I don't have much hope left.

* * *

I wake up in the entry plug. My body floats above the plug seat, suspended so that I am looking downwards, at the controls. It is as if whatever force has suspended me here is, very cruelly, taunting me to pilot the beast that is Unit 01. But why should I pilot it? 

Everyone before me has failed. What good am I at this? I couldn't even beat the angel without Unit 01 having to take over and save me. It moved on its own for the victory, not even requiring its controller.

'_Maybe it'll do so again. Maybe this monster can save you.'_

All of my friends have been trapped and experimented on. Their souls have been tortured for unbearable lengths of time. In Shinji's case, over three years now. I'll face that fate soon.

'_You don't know that. They're just dreams. Find proof that that is really happening before you give up.'_

Even if I were to get up and try to pilot for some reason, Unit 01 has turned off and won't listen to me. There's no power, otherwise I'd have stayed synched to it and not seen that last, horrible dream that seemed to give me all of the answers. I guess it is true what they say.

Ignorance is bliss.

'_You don't know if it will work or fail. Unit 01 might work, there's still a chance. Try it. See what happens.'_

My life is really, truly over now. I can already tell that something will appear as soon as I synch with the Eva. Another Eva, another one of the angels created by Gendo. He's expected all my actions so far and why shouldn't he? He's practically shaped my life to his most convenient use.

'_Aren't you mad about that? The man has practically shaped your and everyone else's in this towns lives. He's killed so many. Doesn't he, at the very least, deserve to die?'_

Yes.

Gendo needs to pay for all the blood on his hands. Unit 01 has the power to seal his fate.

No.

I can't pilot this thing again. It'll destroy me as surely as Gendo will. I can feel its sinister side, desiring oh so much to take my soul into itself and go berserk. It-

There is no answer, because there is no question. Who is asking me these things? Fractures of my soul begin to question what's going on.

'The voice is the manipulator! It's Gendo, in my head. Kill him!'

'It's the manipulator! Hide! Run away…Gendo has come to take my soul!'

'What can I do against these odds…I wish I was dead. This manipulation…has just got to stop.'

'It's an enemy! Maybe the angel's back and has done this. It's manipulating us!'

Things begin to fall apart as my center cannot hold. Frantically, the ruling body of my soul wages war against itself, seeking to come to some sort of a decision. But the voices are so separate! None of them make sense; none seem to agree with any other. I can only begin to understand what one means when another jumps into its place, forcing the last from my mind.

_Kensuke! You've got to stop this. Calm down, take some control here._

Agree with this one? Or maybe this one over here. Oh, they're so divided! If only there was some semblance of unity in this madhouse that I now dwell in. Have I died, moved on, or am I back in the purgatory of the dream room?

_The song is starting to break him up. We've got to do something to stop him._

_Kensuke! Kensuke man, snap out of it!_

A pause. A brief respite in the crushing melody that surrounds me.

What is this? Someone speaks my name. And calls me a 'man'. But what is man? A person or a species? Surely I'm losing any semblance of humanity I used to have.

_We can't talk to him like that!_

_Screw the dam rules! No way I'm gonna let my friend go nutso out there!_

It's been a few years since I've heard anyone speak like that. I haven't heard it since…Touji?

_See! He's got some control! It's not too late to save him._

_Oh man. Bad idea._

'Touji…What's going on? Where are you, what's happening?'

_We're in the tank room Ken. It's horrible! You've got too do something to help us out of here._

…

_Ken?_

'I can't Touji. If I move…they're gonna kill me!'

_How do you know that?_

'Look at what happened to all of you! How am I supposed to beat something that took down all of you guys?'

_You've just got to try Ken. We all did. Even if you fail, it's not a big deal. As long as you try. Failure isn't the end of this. All of us, me, Shinji, Asuka, and Hikari, know that eventually, someone will get us out of here. It has to happen eventually, Gendo's luck can't last forever!_

'I-'

Touji's words, or thoughts, stir something in me. The little bit of Kensuke that really wants to go out there and fight for what he believes in. The little bit of me that has been most mistreated and ignored since Shinji's death. The little bit of me that has been left out in the cold for so long that even something like this can't bring it down. This little bit sees being in the belly of the beast, branded by the mark, as another sign of the times. Just something that's happening and needs to be stopped.

The otaku within me is just itching to pilot this Eva. To be a hero.

So with a cheesy and overly cliché line, I jump into the piloting couch of the Eva. Wrapping my hands around the controls, I let a long suppressed smile flash across my face.

The time has come for me to show everyone how good I really am. To prove Gendo wrong, to free my friends and be a hero to all the others. The time to take these controls and power up the Eva has come.

The switch is small. I press it. Despite my inner cynic's thoughts that nothing would happen, it does.

Unit 01's face had tilted downwards during the power loss. Now, I turn its face up in order to see around me.

I can only see from one of my eyes, some foreign object blocking the other. Directly ahead of me stands the azure painted Unit 00. Because my left eye is blocked, I cannot see its right arm. But its left arm is holding something out in front of it, on its right side. It looks like it's balancing something there.

Something changes in my left eye. I turn my attention to that side of my vision to see a slowly enlarging light. With surprise, I realize that a foreign object has not blocked my sight, but that I am looking down the tube of a rapidly charging energy weapon.

My mouth opens to cry out, Unit 01 tries to roar. Time stands still for a brief moment during which my happier moments in life flash before my eyes. Unsurprisingly, most of them are before or during the eighth grade.

The shot impacts and my visual and physical senses react violently. In the entry plug, my body spasms and begins to die as I feel the left side of my head exploding from the positron rifle's shot. My sense of smell is completely overcome with the bloody smell of LCL, now more then ever before. I can taste my approaching death like so many bitter, bitter memories.

But one thing I have no sensory overload in is sound. After the immediate roar of the positron shot, everything goes away. No sound comes over the com. Rei does not say anything to the young boy she has just killed. Asuka does not yell out for me, nor does Misato anguish upon my death.

No. No one cries for Kensuke Aida. No one cries as I die.

* * *

A familiar feeling. I'm in LCL. 

But that can't be, I'm dead.

A familiar view, from the LCL filled tank into the room at its heart.

But that's impossible, I've died.

An unfamiliar feeling. Four small but bright lights, each a little bit bigger then I'd describe my current self, surround me. They surround and encompass me. They feel strangely similar to me.

But there can't be anything. Rei killed me.

Rei.

Shinji. Asuka. Touji. Hikari.

It's a rush when it all comes back to me. I'm dead, but I've been taken to the room of my nightmares. My soul has been harvested for sorrow's lover's use. Gendo has captured my most precious being.

Those around me are my friends. They've been captured and hideous things done to them. They wanted me to save them. I wanted to save them.

I failed.

"I'm sorry."

"…That's my line."

Despite the long time since I've seen him, Shinji's word still don't surprise me. I'm instead surprised that both Shinji and I speak words, instead of the strange thoughts I'd heard from my friends when they spoke to me in the entry plug. Seeing as none of us have bodies, there is no apparent reason for the vocalized words.

The next words are instantly recognizable as Touji's. "Yeah, it just works like that."

Huh?

"All your thoughts are spoken, dummkopf."

That's a surprise. Not the speaker, but the fact that all my thoughts are vocalized. I'm now in a land with no secrets. All my inner secrets, if thought of, could be seen and heard by all of my friends.

"Ugh! Definitely didn't need to know that!"

"Whoa Ken! Take your mind off those things, not straight onto them!"

With what would amount to a metaphysical blush, I hastily apologize. When I'd first thought that there were no secrets here, all my secrets that I wanted to lock away forever rushed to the forefront of my mind. This will take some getting used to.

"You can say that again." Hikari speaks for the first time since I've arrived.

I barely restrain myself from thinking about what must have happened when she got here and started thinking of Touji. No time for that now, I need to find out what's going on.

"How? I mean… I saw it coming and you guys tried to help me, but how exactly did my soul get here?"

Asuka's soul makes as if to speak, but then decides better of it and backs away a bit. Shinji does his usual thing and stays quiet. Hikari and Touji's souls seem to look at each other, then Touji's starts to speak.

"First off, that wasn't us talking to you. Gendo's got the Eva rigged with small receivers and transceivers. Probably got your room bugged too. For the last few months he's been messing with your head. Controlling you so that you'd end up here. Trapped. He just made you think it was us you were hearing so that you'd activate the Eva and he'd have a reason to kill you."

That's a load. According to Touji, Gendo's somehow managed to set up the whole town so he can manipulate people's minds and control their actions. He has controlled me subtly, touching me whenever I have a weak moment. This manipulation has caused me to follow his bidding.

He's made me become an Eva pilot. His subconscious cues got me to think about the past. These thoughts allowed the dreams, which Gendo had somehow transmitted, to start. Everything I had seen in the dreams, he'd wanted me to see. While I had thought I was getting raw information about the truth, he'd actually been feeding me censored and doctored parts of what he wanted me to see. All for me to end up here.

"And where is here?"

"The room of Gauf." Shinji speaks up. "Deep in the heart of NERV. We're not completely sure what it does, just that it has something to do with the true Instrumentality project. We ended up here because it was the place we all most feared going to after we died."

"How?

"He controlled me first. By placing information about the room of Gauf and what it did, he made me so fearful of it that when Rei killed me, the Room of Gauf grabbed me and pulled me in. Then he tapped into my mind and stole some of my memories. He transmitted them to Asuka, who then feared coming to the Room of Gauf so much that she came here after her death as well. After he had the process down, it was easy for him to repeat it on Touji, Hikari, and a few others from our class. Eventually he used it on you."

The level of deception is even larger then I'd imagined.

I could understand Gendo trapping us, but using our friend's memories against us was a stroke of genius. Whenever I'd seen from Shinji's perspective, I'd always seen it as the absolute truth. Shinji wouldn't lie to me, so why should his dreams be any less true?

But in reality, it wasn't all of Shinji's view that I'd seen. Gendo had cut the "footage" so it only contained information that would lead me here upon my death. I'd allowed NERV to lead me down this path like a meek little lamb. Thinking back to it, when I'd died I'd feared coming here more then death itself. So, some cruel hand of god placed me here.

"Don't beat yourself up too much Ken. We all fell for it too. Shinji was even the guinea pig for the whole thing."

Shinji's soul hung its head. Asuka spoke up for him. "Yeah, the baka didn't even realize what was going on, even though he was the test run of the whole set up. When I saw his memories, it was like something from a B-grade movie. No subtlety at all. Gendo accidentally spelled it all out, and Baka-kun here still didn't get it!"

Touji's soul smiled. "Course, Asuka saw different parts from the rest of us. Gendo hadn't quite perfected it yet. He let her see too much. But then he fixed his mistake so that none of us would suspect something like this."

Asuka sniffed haughtily. "I had a better idea about what was going on then you did Suzuhara."

"Please stop fighting," Shinji and Hikari spoke together. It was like the both of them too think something like that.

Just then the lights in the main room turned on. Gendo Ikari stood in the doorway, one hand on the light switch. When he saw my soul in the tank, he smiled.

My eyes were riveted on him as he walked into the room and took a seat behind a computer. He began typing something up. But what was it?

"He's probably taking notes on your capture. Building a better mouse trap."

I wasn't sure who had responded to my last question, but I returned with another. "Why did he do this?"

"Instrumentality." Definitely Shinji now. "He's going to try to unite the souls of all humanity like this. No secrets from one another."

"What's…living like that like?"

"It's complicated, at least at first." Touji was talking now. "But since we couldn't do anything secretly here, it got easier as we got to know everyone else's secrets from the past. It's not that bad, but the more people who come in the harder it is. We've got to learn all of your secrets and you must tell us all of ours, otherwise we'll just find out when you think about it on accident. You kind of get numb to telling people your secrets after a while though, so it's mostly difficult for the new person."

Which would now be me?

"Yeah."

Shit.

I turn my eyes off of Gendo and realize that there is another person with him.

Rei looks lost. Her body has grown even paler then I remember. There are large bags underneath her eyes, showing of a lack of sleep. She's also lost weight since I last saw her two years ago.

Her eyes are even stranger then I remember. When you say someone has bloodshot eyes, you mean that you can see the red arteries in their eyes. But in Rei's case, since she always has red eyes, you can see her veins. Her red eyes are dotted with blue lines running wildly around them. The worst part is that the blue matches her hair perfectly, bringing up the image that she really is an ice queen and that her eyes have frozen over along with the rest of her. Her unshaved legs didn't help this image.

"She always looks especially bad after someone gets brought in. Whenever one of us goes through the dreams, she has to suffer through them as well. It's some quirk of her genetics. She's somehow attuned to the energies father broadcasts."

It was Shinji who spoke. He sounded sorry for her. Only Shinji could feel sorry for his killer. Rei **had **shot his Eva in the head after all.

"It's okay. She apologized to me. She always apologizes now. Whenever she has to kill one of us, she feels bad about it. But she has too, because my father makes her." Shinji was much more talkative then I remembered him being.

For a brief moment I consider that this all may be yet another ruse created by Gendo. That these people talking to me aren't really my friends, that they're just another trick. I forget they can read my mind.

"No, it's not quite that complex. It can only go so far, you know?"

It does have to stop eventually, I suppose. Even Gendo can't manipulate all of us forever. Besides, my mind isn't collected enough to try to keep unraveling the lies for much longer. If it doesn't stop soon, I'll crack for sure.

"Glad to hear you trust us."

Do I? Yes, I suppose I do.

"Now what happens?"

Touji shrugs. "Not much we can do. We've tried every square inch of this prison and there's no way out. We can't get out, and no one else ever comes in here. There's always a chance that we might get lucky and a janitor will come in and free us, but other then that there's nothing we can do."

So that's it then. There's no way out. All we can do is wait for Instrumentality to really start and pray someone happens to find us. There is a little spark of hope left, but there's nothing we can do to try to fan it into a fire. It's all dumb luck. Chance.

"C'mon. You might as well start spilling your secrets. Shinji and Asuka sometimes tell the rest of us stories about how it was when they both tried to keep secrets from the other. Since then, we tell the secrets as soon as the person arrives. Saves them some embarrassment. After you're done you can hear all of ours. There's nothing else to do. Can't sleep, can't eat…"

I let Touji continue to talk and lead me away from the glass prison and into a deeper part of the cage. It's actually much larger then I'd originally thought. It has to be, the rest of humanity will likely be crammed into it someday. It's the last of mine and my friend's freedom.

This life sounds and looks scary, but a part of me wonders if it won't be better than my previous life. With no secrets, there can be no pain. This life could eventually become perfect.

If I can just persevere, there's a chance I might even be happy.

* * *

End Chapter 4 

Well, this is my third conclusion to a story. When I origonally wrote the ending, I thought it came off a little vaguely. I felt like it answered all the questions, but didn't really have any sense of closure. But after rereading it and fixing a few things, I decided I like it open. It's up to you, the reader, to decide what happens after this.

If there's one thing in this whole fic that I'm not happy about it's that I had to bastardize Gendo. I actually find him interesting as a character, despite my turning him into the bad guy here. His devotion to his cause and willingness to go all the way for it makes me like him. I've also heard that he's based (at least physically) off of Hideako Anno. A man like Gendo make Evangelion what it is.

Thanks to the ever present reviewers JCMoorehead and Dartz-IRL. All the reviews, from both of you, have helped me out immensily in writing this. Additional thanks to returning reviewer D24g0n and new reviewer Wildcard-JT. I'm glad you all enjoyed it.

It's never too late to hear from anybody else. Let me know what you think

Considering my next fic, I have to stop and think. I've been trying to work my way through the genres, and so far I've done action/adventure (although somewhat poorly), romance (with good result)s, drama (was there any of that in Rivalitas?), and now horror and some mystery (at least, that's what this is supposed to be). That leaves humor, parody, and angst somewhere near the top of my "to do list". I might take a while on this next one. If you've enjoyed this, or any of my other stories, try to keep an eye out for it.


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